D J 

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Class 
Book. 



My. 



CopyrigfaS?__ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSrT. 




HOLLAND AS SEEN 
BY AN AMERICAN 



Holland as Seen by 
an American. 



BY 

James H. Gore, Ph.D. 

Professor of Mathematics and Geodesy 

in Columbian University, 

Washington, D. C. 



Published by the 

Holland-America Line, 

New York. 



' 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Raceived 

MAY 12 1903 

Copyngnt fcntry 

CUSS &- XXc. No. 

COPY B. ' 



Copyright, 1903, by the 
HOLLAND-AMERICA LINE, 



I 







AMSTERDAM CENTRAL STATION. 



" T AM told, sir, that you are going to travel, 
and that you begin by Holland," wrote 
Lord Chesterfield, in the first of his charm- 
ing "Letters to His Son." He evidently approved 
of his son's intention to enter the Continent of 
Europe through this natural gateway, and suc- 
ceeding generations have placed their stamp of 
approval upon this beginning for the " Grand 
Tour" by gladly following it. 

For purely practical" reasons, Holland is the 
ideal starting point for a thorough visit of Europe ; 
it is almost the very centre of gravity of the Con- 
tinent, its railroads reach out in all directions to starting 
carry the tourist into adjacent or far-away lands, P oint 
and the natural desire to see again its many charms 
can be gratified by the necessary return for em- 
barcation on the home-bound steamer. 

In thinking of such a trip, ghosts of the long 
ago come unbidden before the mind of the trav- 
eler. Flitting by he sees young Oliver Goldsmith, 
knowing nothing of Dutch, but bent on teaching 
the Dutch English, returning from his fruitless 
efforts penniless, with a flute as his capital and 
but little more as his baggage. Then comes Gib- 
bon, as yet a youth, back from his tour, the "Fall 
and Decline" unthought of, hurrying, as he says 
with regret, through Holland — that "monument 
of freedom and industry." Close behind is Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, atsonishing the Netherlanders 
with his ear-trumpet, and writing home delighted 
to Burke: "The face of the country is unlike any- 
thing else; the length and straightness of the arti- 
ficial roads, often with double rows of trees which 
finish in a point; the perseverance of their indus- 
try and labor to form these dykes and preserve 
them in such perfect repair, is an idea that must 



Ghosts 
of the 
long ago 



occur to every mind and is truly sublime." After 
him is Smollett, in the guise of his hero, Peregrine 
Pickle, who distinguishes himself at Rotterdam 
by getting upset and nearly drowned with his 
Dutch friends, who are discovered, when landed, 
still smoking their pipes. 

Then later shades pass before the traveler. 
The frail figure of Tom Hood, hurrying to Cob- 
lentz in search of health, turning his suffering 
into drolleries and punning on his own pains. 
John Quincy Adams follows: the youth who at 
thirteen was a student at the University of Ley- 
den and at fourteen was secretary of the legation 
at St. Petersburg; and just behind him is Wash- 
ington Irving, his quick eye and polished pen 
noting his " Tales of a Traveler," and at the same 
time gathering the inspiration for his " Knicker- 
bocker's History." Then, foremost in the trav- 
eler's memory and esteem, the creator of Colonel 
Newcome. Thackeray's genial nature is warmed 
by the delightful newness of Holland, and his 
heart's feelings find expression when he says: "I 
feel a Dutchman is a man and a brother." 

For a time Holland seems to have been for- 
gotten, and the tourist did not realize that as 
much retirement and as many novelties are found 
on the shores of the Zuyder Zee as on the Sea 
of Galilee. When the Netherlanders were spoken 
of, there came the vision of the Batavia of Csesar, 
that admixture of land and water, quaking mor- 
asses on every side, with the 
oozy soil only here and 
there thrown high enough 
to give a foothold to the 




ROTTERDAM: DELFT GATE, 
f) 



scsfrtt and hardy popula 
tion. 

Out of this waste of 
water and almost 
floating soil — 




ROTTERDAM. THE OLD MILL. 



"A land that rides at anchor, Ml* / 

and is moor'd, 
In which they do not live, 
but go aboard," 

a noble people has created the fertile and pro- a noble 
ductive home of a compact and prosperous com- people 
monwealth; has defended it in long and ferocious 
contests with the mightiest powers of Europe, 
and stands to-day the proudest example that our 
race has to show of conquest by patient and un- 
flinching toil and devotion, over the combined 
opposition of nature and man. 

There is an injunction against building on the 
sand, but in Holland every house has to be built 
on the sand, and a whole coast-line is held together 
by ropes of sand cemented in place by the roots 
of unpretentious reed grass. By means of wind- 
mills, the air is made to pay toll, and by its power 
the seeping water is pumped from where it is not 
wanted into channels where it is permitted to 
run. The trees grow and the rivers flow, just as 
they are wanted. Air, earth and water are under 
control, and the result is — Holland. 

It is a region of paradoxes, in itself an anomaly, Land of 
and physical geography can scarcely admit its paradoxes 
existence. Its history is a subversion of the laws 
of nature, and all of its successes have been won 
by a perpetual struggle with the elements. The 
ocean has said to the Hollanders, "You shall have 
no land here." The Hollanders said to the ocean, 
"We will have a country here;" and they had 
one in spite of water, winds and waves. Holland, 
more than any region under the sun, illustrates 
the power of industry and perseverance. 



Combat 

with 

nature 



Struggle 

for 

freedom 



One never combats nature with abstractions. 
In Holland man is inevitably kept face to face 
with realities by the watchful care which his very 
existence demands and the material obstacles 
which must be conquered at every step. Patriot- 
ism never becomes dormant because the land 
shows in its scars its own history, and love for 
home glows at the reckoning of the cost of its 
retention. 

We saw this little nation, almost imperceptible 
on the map of the world during the sixteenth 
century, build dykes and contest with the sea for 
supremacy. In their struggle against Spain they 
preferred to treat with the sea than with the Duke 
of Alva; and when no longer able to cope with a 
superior force, they cut the dykes and flooded 
provinces, preferring to drown themselves with 
the land of their creation than to live upon soil 
outraged by the feet of foreign foes. 

Here was the center of the great struggle for 
freedom, both religious and political, won with 
difficulty for Europe, and at the cost of horrible 
sufferings to the inhabitants of these industrious 
well-doing cities. Here arose ingrained leaders, 
if ever any existed, who gave up prosperity so 
dear to them for the sake of what to some seem only 
mere abstract questions; here women and children 
helped in fighting the good fight, both exhorting 
their mankind not to yield, and themselves fight- 
ing on the ramparts. Here William the Silent, 
Barneveldt, De Witt, Prince Maurice, and William 
III revolved their great schemes 
of European policy and moved 
the strings that moved the world. 




ROTTKHDAM MILLS ON THE BOB8EM, 

8 



In most countries wealth begets idleness. In 
Holland never. A little crevice in the dyke, un- 
noticed for a few hours might permit the devasta- 
tion of a district, and even with the most watchful 
care, the possessions of one day are no guarantee 
of the wealth of the next. 

When one community is rejoicing over its Dutch traits 
escape from inundation, the people near by may 
be counting up their losses in life and property; 
thus one sympathizes with the other; the possi- 
bility of a coming misfortune — which is a part of 
every Dutchman's to-morrow — makes everyone 
generous, and the hundreds of charitable institu- 
tions in Holland prove that this generosity assumes 
tangible form. "Have no fear for Amsterdam," 
said Louis XIV, "I firmly believe Providence 
will save her because of her benevolence to the 
poor." 

In this fragmentary country, broken into parts 
by lakes, and cut into pieces by rivers and canals, 
interest centred around localized systems of 
hydraulics. Thus one community was a unit in 
those vital matters of sustenance and self-preser- 
vation, and its people naturally felt a greater 
allegiance to the local government than to a cen- 
tralized power. Then, the libert}^ of the village 
led to the liberty of the individual. Under such 
conditions an empire could never have 
come into existence; with such an 
origin the United Netherlands 
are indissoluble. 



m 



i 



-J .L- 



w<mti* 



rf^Tpe 



IMU 



MlLLU 1 



! » M . 



jsk 




AMSTERDAM A CANAL STREET. 

9 




ROTTERDAM : A CANAL STREET. 



Discipline 



Science and 
industry 



When the surging waters approach danger- 
ously near, the vulnerable points of an important 
dyke, every shovelful of earth must count; the 
opposing forces must be placed and used to the 
best advantage, and safety is assured only when 
obedience is obtained. Discipline therefore is a 
shining Dutch trait. This constant struggle 
places success as the only accepted goal of every 
effort, but the effort to be availing must be con- 
centrated. One man working alone cannot build 
a dyke, neither can he check in time a threatened 
break. Labor, therefore,, can never be selfish 
and individual. The lesson learned in the war 
with the sea becomes a guide in organizing the 
battle with competition, and guilds and corpora- 
tions are the result. 

Without science and industry such a land would 
never have beheld the light of day, and but for the 
incessant vigilance of its people it would soon 
perish. Its creation is a miracle of human genius: 
its preservation is a monument to man's skill. 
The genius of Babylon proudly boasted, "It is I 
who made the Euphrates," but culture upon its 
banks did not continue long after its making. 
The genius of Holland even in a greater sense can 
say, "It is I who made the Rhine, the Maas, and 
the land through which they flow," and culture 
upon their shores grows with the passing years. 

The work accomplished here, the strengthening 
of defences, the pumping dry of lakes whose beds 
were coveted by the thrifty fanners, and the 



10 






building of substantial roads and canals surpass 
all other systems of public improvements, except 
it be our own 30,000 miles of railroads over moun- 
tains, across rapid, broad rivers, and along shaky 
morasses. "Talk of the Pyramids of Egypt as 
monuments of man's skill and industry! mere 
warts, pimples on the surface of the country which 
once belonged to them and to which they now 
belong; neither useful nor ornamental — exhibiting 
neither great skill nor great goodness in their 
design or execution. Talk of the Chinese Wall 
as a monument to be admired! Broad, indelible 
mark of the imbecility of the three hundred millions 
of people who built it — a single line of no more 
work to the mile than some single lines of dykes 
— that never answered even ; k the ignoble pur- 
pose for which it was built ; | while these are 
a perfect network over ^ the land they 
preserve. Create three 
hundred millions of 
Dutchmen, and in 
stead of building 
walls to protect 
themselves 
against the Tar- 
tars, they 
would 
every 
croaching 



wipe 

en- 




ENKHUIZEN. 



Tartar off the 
face of the 
earth. Create 
three hundred 
millions of Dutch- 
men, and they woul< 
bring home the Chinese 
Wall, lay it in a dam across 

the Straits of Gibraltar, and pump the Mediterra- 
nean down the throat of Vesuvius." 

Everyone who wishes to see the highest rewards 
paid for industry, thrift and economy should 
visit Holland. Not for a single day, but for a week 
or even longer; long enough to become inoculated 
with the spirit that has made its people famous 
in literature, science and art, as well as in the 
industrial world. The inhabitants of a country 
are what the external influences make them, and 
its geography is a preface to its history, as well 



11 



Hallowed 
places 



as a key to the understanding of the people's 
habits, genius and institutions. In no other land 
is this so clearly true as in the Hollow-land, 
and the tourist who wishes to bring home 
something more than memories of cities, monu- 
ments and cathedrals — who wants to feel his 
soul made larger by coming close to influences 
that are character-building, should include in 
his itinerary this birthplace of religious freedom, 
public schools and civil government. 

In this fair land he can visit places hallowed in 
years gone by by the presence of the world's 
greatest men. Snell, who was the first person to 
make an attempt to determine accurately the size 
and shape of the earth, lived in Leyden, the city 
that so hospitably opened its doors to the Eng- 
lish Puritans, afterward the Mayflower Pilgrims. 
Erasmus, "who laid the egg that Luther hatched," 
was born in Rotterdam, and Bayle, whose boast 
it was that he was a Protestant of Protestants, 
for he protested against all systems, and all sects, 
lived there. The quiet village of Voorburg was 
the home of Vossius, who, as professor of elo- 
quence in the University of Leyden, and as a pro- 
lific writer, left an impress upon his own and upon 
succeeding generations greater by far than could 
be the boast of any of his contemporaries. Here 
too, Spinoza, so misunderstood, so maligned, and 
then so revered, found a home. Delft is proud 
of having given to the world Grotius, the publicist , 
prodigy of Europe, who at nine 
years of age wrote Latin verses, 
and at eleven composed Greek 
odes. 




rr 



1AANPAM WINI> SAWMILLS. 



12 




HOME OF THE PILGRIMS. 



The mariner's compass is the invention of a Hoi- Dutch 
lander. Jansen, a spectacle maker of Middelburg, inven ors 
invented the telescope. The thermometer was 
introduced into Northern Europe by a Dutch 
physician; the first newspaper printed in Europe 
was in Dutch; and Leeuwenhoek was the founder 
of microscopy. 

It was while a soldier at Breda that Descartes 
became interested in mathematics, the science 
to which he afterward made so many valuable 
contributions. Huyghens brought glory not only 
to his native country, but to all of Europe. Boer- 
have became so famous that a letter addressed 
by a Chinese mandarin to "Boerhave, physician 
of Europe," promptly reached him. With Holland 
will remain forever in the field of typography, 
the incontestable glory of the Elzevirs, and the 
honor of having printed the works of almost all 
the great writers of the age of Louis XIV; of having 
diffused throughout Europe the French philosophy 
of the eighteenth century; and of having gath- 
ered up, defended, and propagated human thought 
when proscribed by despotism and denied by fear. 

The lovers of art must go to Holland, for the Dutch art 
Dutch painters are supreme, and there is reason 
to believe that a painting by Hobbema or by 
Rembrandt will find admirers when "Correggio 
and stun" will be disregarded. The gorgeous 
acres of canvases covered by Rubens, the mag- 
nificent Rembrandts, the little jewels of color by 



13 



Terburg, Wouermans, Gerard Dow, Ostade, Mieris, 
and Both; the wondrous portraits where Van der 
Heist, Frank Hals, and Yandyck represented their 
men and women; the landscapes at which Ruys- 
dael, Hobbema, Cuyp, P. Potter, and Berghem 
labored so industriously, all fill us with wonder 




KOTTERDAM: STATUE OF ERASMUS. 



Picturesque 
houses 



at the quantity as well as the quality of their 
beautiful work. There is not a gallery in Europe, 
public or private, of any renown, which does not 
contain many specimens of each of the good Dutch 
masters. 

Nothing can be more picturesque than the 
infinite variety of queer gables and pediments, 
the scrolls and windows in the canal streets. For 
hundreds of years whole streets of tall houses in 
the old cities have nodded their heads so near 
together that their jutting griffins and gorgons 
have almost lapped each other's grim jaws; but 
there they grin just as fierce to view and just as 
harmless to touch as centuries ago. Holland. 
indeed, is like a cabinet picture by one of its native 
artists — so wonderfully exact, highly finished, 
and thoroughly worked up in every thing. 

The clean, well-sembled Dutch houses them- 
selves are not better kept and tended, for that 
matter, than is all out-of-doors in Holland. One 
would think the rain that fell from Heaven was 
soap and water, and that once a week the farms 



u 



race 



were swept and dusted for Sunday. Even the 
little bushes seem to have grown afraid to stir 
when a breeze came to play with them, lest they 
should rumple their leaves, and be called untidy. 

The Dutch, though a sturdy race, have ever A sturdy 
found their greatest comfort within doors, driven 
thither by their treacherous climate, and the 
outcome has been, not only the adornment and 
beautifying of the interior and the objects of 
domestic use, but the foundation of a distinctive 
school of art which has immortalized this ten- 



dency. It is no wonder that 
school finds its greatest mas 
painters of interiors, for no 
able or artistic houses ever 
Likewise, in this fact, may 
the impulse that expressed 
the rich porcelains, the 
carved cabinets and the 
massive paneled doors. 
In the long, still, 
winter twilight many a 
plow handle has been 
lovingly decorated 
with a ram's horn 



the Dutch 
ters in the 
more paint- 
existed, 
be found 
itself in 
heavy 




MIDDELBURO: CITY HALl* 

15 



The 
Rhineland 



spiral to serve the double purpose of grip and 
ornament. The churndasher ending in a rude, 
though charmingly cut, Holland lion, done over 
the dull glow of a turf fire, is much more beautiful 
than a steam churn, no matter how much red 
paint or impossible cows a hasty manufacturer 
has stenciled upon it. 

The longings, if not inspiration, of an artist 
come over one as he roams over the region around 
about Leyden, where a thousand years ago the 
sea dammed the mouth of the Old Rhine with 
sand and the whole tract between 
Leyden and Katwyk was changed ^^*m 
into a feverish swamp. The ^^k 
site of this swamp, still lo- J 
cally called the Rhineland, 
is now a smiling land of 
gardens and sound mead- 
ow. Through it, what 
remains of the Old Rhine 
runs between banks set 
for miles with blazing 
beds of hyacinths and 
scarlet tulips, till it 




\ M- IKIIDWI 



enters the desert region of the sand dunes. Here 
the Dutch have cut through the hills and once 
more given to the river its ancient exit to the sea, 
barred by double sluices of granite and steel. The 
tulip beds creep on by the river-side into the dunes, 
the scarlet patches divided by mounds of sedge- 




ISLAXD OF MARKEX HOUSE INTERIOR. 



covered sand, on which the Rhineland fishermen's 
nets are laid to dry, and the Rhineland fisher- 
children sail their models of the flat-bottomed 
fishing boats 

Over these sunny flats, chequered with broad 
cloud shadows, the son of a Ley den miller has 
strolled, note book in hand, and his quick brown 
eye and ready pencil have noted all the landscape's 
changing moods. It has altered but little since 
young Van Ryn, immortal as Rembrandt, studied Van Ryn 
hereabouts, and the traveler can see from the Rembrandt 
railway carriage the spot by the Leyden ramparts 
where he lived close beside his father's mill. The 
life here left an impression upon the receptive 
artist and showed itself in his work until crowded 
out by a girl's face: first a young face archly 
smiling; then as Queen of the Fairies; later in 
rich dresses and jewels; and later still, as a matron 
by her husband's side. It is Saskia von Ulen- 
burgh, the painter's wife. It has been said that 
Rembrandt's style is emblematical of his life, 
which alternates from the full flood-light of hap- 
piness to deep shadow and gloom. The year of 
1692 is marked with the strongest light and 
shadow; "the artist's greatest triumph, the man's 
greatest loss." He painted the " Night Watch " — 



17 



Coloring 
and light 



Rigorous 
climate 



Amsterdam's pride and greatest treasure — and his 
fame was brightest; the shadow fell, and he fol- 
lowed his girl wife to the tomb. 

If you wish to know the source of their artist's 
skill in coloring and light, go and study Dutch 
scenery, especially in North Holland, and you will 
soon discover how the landscape painters learned 
to deal with the sky and to reproduce its many 
dints in their works. They simply copied with 
consummate skill what they saw before them. 
Become familiar with the history of the sixteenth 
century, the fresh, vigorous, free life of the United 
Provinces as they threw off the yoke of Spain, 
and you will understand how, almost at a bound, 
Dutch portraits and landscape paintings reached 
the zenith. 

The rigorous climate allowed but a brief time 
for the admiration of nature, and for this reason 
the Dutch artists gave to her an admiration all 
the more intense. When spring at last broke 
through the icy bands of winter, she was hailed 
with a lively joy, and, knowing that her sojourn 
would be short, her many moods and phases, 
whims and fancies were duly noted. The rare 
smiles of summer made burning impressions, and 
the bright days of autumn, reminders of past 
glories and harbingers of the dreariness ahead, 
took possession of the painter's memory. Then, 
when the landscape artist began to paint, the flat, 
monotonous country took on a marvelous variety, 
all of the mutations of the sky clamored for ex- 
pression, and the water with its reflections, its 





PARK IN THE SAM 



18 



grace and freshness illuminated everything. Hav- 
ing no mountains, a dyke became a background; 
deprived of forests, a simple group of trees took 
on all the mystery of a forest; and white sails 
and beautiful cows animated the whole. 

In Holland/tire light, by reason of the peculiar The light 



conditions of its manifes 
the manner of painting, 
striving to transfuse an 
impregnated with vapor, 
nebulous veil of rents 
Light and shadow 
supremacy, and the 
seeking to represent 
gle, transferred it to 
soul ; then, in creating, 
elements became con 




tations, influenced 

A pale light, 

atmosphere 

becomes a 

and shreds. 

struggle for 

artist, 

the strug- 

h i s o w n 

the t w o 

t e n t i o u s 




leyden: zeil gate. 



under his hand. "He accumulated darkness that 
he might split and seam it with all manner of lumi- 
nous effects and sudden gleams of light ; sunbeams 
darted through the rifts; sunset reflections and 
the yellow rays of lamplight were blended with 
delicate manipulations into mysterious shadows, 
and their dim depths were peopled with half-seen 
forms." 

In yet another field are the Dutch painters The sea 
great — the sea. The sea, their enemy, their power 
and their glory, forever threatening their coun- 
try, and entering in a hundred ways into their 
lives and fortunes; that turbulent North Sea, full 
of sinister colors, with a light of infinite melan- 
choly upon it, beating forever upon a desolate 



19 



Realism 
and detail 



Political 
example 



coast, which it obstinately demands, must subju- 
gate the imagination of the artist. 

Realism, natural to the calmness and slowness 
of the Dutch character, was to give to their art 
still another distinctive feature — finish. Patience, 
so palpably a national trait, can be plainly seen 
in their pictures. Everything is represented with 
the minuteness of a photograph; every vein in 
the wood of a piece of furniture; every fibre in a 
leaf, the threads of cloth, the stitches in a patch, 
every hair upon an animal's coat, every wrinkle 
in a man's face — all finished with microscopic 
precision, as if done with a fairy pencil, or at the 
expense of the painter's eyes and reason. 

If the lovers of art should visit Holland to be- 
come possessed of those inspirations which found 
expression in the world's masterpieces, still more 
incumbent is such a pilgrimage upon all w T ho are in 
sympathy with free thought and religious and 
political liberty. We, in common with the people 
of modern Europe, are indebted to Holland for 
lessons in the true purposes of civil government. 
It gave to America the example of a country 
struggling for liberty, and showed our people that 
even by the horrors of war the highest principles 
can be vindicated. It taught Europe everything 
else. It instructed the farmers of the world in 
systematic agriculture. It gave to navigation its 
greatest impulse, made voyages 
of discovery popular, and 
founded rational commerce. 




IAANDAM LANDSCAPE. 



20 



FISHING ON THE CANAL. 

Its learned scholars 

enriched the world's 

thought, its physi- 
cians and physicists 

extended the bound- 
aries of knowledge, 

and from its banks and 

counting-houses came the 

soundest principles of finance 

and economics. In short, there 

was a time when this little plot of v s 

land held within its boundaries precepts 

and examples for the civilized world. 

In Holland, international law, or the rights of Inter-^ 
nations, was for the first time placed on a recog- law 
nized foundation. When not engaged in strug- 
gling for their own rights, they were enabling 
others to live in the full enjoyment of theirs. Thus 
the Jews, despised because of their thrift, robbed 
because they were wealthy, and persecuted be- 
cause they held fast to the rites and traditions of 
their fathers, found an asylum among the Dutch. 
The Jansenists when expelled from France found 
in Utrecht homes and the unneeded, unexpressed 
permission to speak their views openly. 




21 



»-_^ W*-» ^A v lift- 


• 







delft: east gate. 



Historical 
cities 



Revival of 
learning 



Locke wrote his " Essay on the Human Under- 
standing," while a fugitive, driven from Oxford 
and declared a " plotter against the life of King 
James and the peace of the nation." When 
Shaftesbury was obliged to leave England, he 
made Holland his home, as did many others, 
who escaped, by so doing, a home within the dis- 
mal Tower. 

Nearly every city in Holland finds its name on 
at least one page of the world's history : thus Dort 
entertained the famous synod which adjusted the 
religious differences between the Calvinists, the 
Lutherans, and the Arminians. At Ryswyk, was 
signed in 1697, the treaty that made peace between 
England, France, Germany, Holland and Spain; 
and sixteen years later Utrecht witnessed a similar 
ceremony enacted by the representatives of Eng- 
land, Holland, Germany and Savoy. This coun- 
try, small as it is, has been sought in allegiance 
by every great European power except Russia, 
and in every instance the allies have learned 
lessons that have been beneficial — honesty, if 
nothing more. Leyden, in recognition of her 
heroism in withstanding the Spanish siege for one 
hundred and thirty-one days, was given the choice 
between exemption from certain taxes, or a uni- 
versity. She wisely chose the latter, and thousands 
have been blessed by her wise choosing. 

The history of the revival of learning and the 
unfolding of science 1 , i- written in a large measure 



in the annals of the university at Leyden. Preach- 
ers and professors, banished from their own coun- 
tries on account of their religious faiths, received 
grants to sustain them in their distress and to help 
them to continue their work. It was here that 
Boerhave instituted the modern system of clinical 
instruction in medicine. His theory of the balance 
of humors in the system, translated into more 
exact scientific phrase in the light of modern re- 
search, has a clear and definite meaning. Engi- 
neering, so important to the Dutch, received its 
greatest impulse in the founding here, in 1590, 
the first school of engineering. 

It is pleasant to linger about the Town Hall J^en^ 
here, and to fraternize with the gaily painted 
stone lions who have for three hundred years 
done duty as watchful guardians. They looked 
down on Oliver Goldsmith; on the youthful Philip 
Stanhope, receiving and sometimes reading Lord 
Chesterfield's letters; on the studious Boswell, 
.netting Johnson's kindly advice and counsel; 
mi Evelyn, deep in botany, and Adams, deep in 
linguistics; all of whom attended with more or 
less attention the lectures of Leyden's great pro- 
fessors. 

These are only a few of Holland's claims for a 
part of the tourist's time, but if they have been 




GBON1NGKN : MARKET PLACE. 
23 




ort: city hall on a canal street. 



Lord 
Bacon's 

warning 



put forth with anything like the attractiveness 
they deserve, the reader will by this time be ready 
to resolve to visit this charming land at the earliest 
possible date. I have spent three entire summers 
in Holland, and shall not neglect a single oppor- 
tunity to go there again, and if I can induce you 
to come aboard the good ship Rotterdam, and 
journey across the sea to spend weeks rather than 
clays, or clays instead of hours, in the country 
which the "Dutch have taken/' I shall be able to 
count one more who is under obligations to me. 

To travel in Holland, it is unnecessary to heed 
the warning of Lord Bacon, that one who went 
to a country before he made himself acquainted 
with the language, went to school and not to travel. 
Any man with ordinary intelligence will be able 
to find his way anywhere, and be under no appre- 
hension of being cheated because of his ignorance. 

There is no place in Europe where the American 
will feel so much at home as in Holland. It is, 
therefore, the country first to be visited and the 
last which one should leave. The Dutch mind 
is quite like the American in its methods of thought 
There is the same intensity of feeling on all relig- 
ious questions, the same revolting at oppressive 



24 



restrictions, and the same keen, practical genius. 

There is no field of human enterprise in which Cause of 
their success has not been, at one time or another, success 
notable. At the bottom of it all, apparently at the 
bottom of the character on which their success has 
been founded, we find their traditional jealousy 
of every acre of water which covers good land. 
If a lake is to be drained, they sit quietly down 
and count the cost, the time, and the interest that 
time will add to the cost, and then devise the most 
effective means; this done, the undertaking pro- 
ceeds with the regularity and persistence of the 
work of ants. 

As a people they hold stubbornly to their an- 
cient customs; preserving almost intact, and 
despite the neighborhood of three great nations, 
their own individuality, and remaining, of all the 
northern races, that one which, though ever ad- 
vancing in the path of civilization, has kept its 
antique stamp most clearly. 

In approaching Holland, one sees a long, narrow Approach to 
ribbon of a picture with its little dots and spots 
and splashes of color here and there, more method- 
ical than accidental, and somewhat like the pat- 
tern on a roll of wall paper. By looking through 
a glass, these dots of various shapes and sizes 
resolve themselves into windmills, cows, sheep, 
churches and steeples, and little red-tiled houses 
with green or blue shutters and chimney crowned 




LEEUWARDEN MARKET PLAC«. 

25 




UTRECHT: MAKKET PLACE. 



with storks' nests. We swing gently around into 
the artificial mouth of the Maas, past the "Hook," 
and in a short time we are within the Hollow- 
land. 

The first question is one of surprise. "Is this 
the boasted river that circles through a part of 
France, forces its way across Belgium, and gives 
to Rotterdam its importance as a port?" It is 
and yet it is not. 
The rivers While listening to the explanation that follows, 

you will learn something of Dutch skill and deter- 
mination. The tendency of the rivers of Holland, 
because of the slight fall they have, is to drop 
sediment, especially at their mouths. The sea 
has resisted this encroachment, causing the rivers 
to spread out into numerous branches so that no 
channel retains, unaided, the depth demanded 
by the larger vessels. The Maas lacked a safe 
channel, so the Dutch en gineers cut an 

artificial way from Rotter R5 dam, and by con- 
trolling the flow 




DOG CART. 

2G 



of water through it and by incessant dredging, 
the requisite depth is maintained. The filling up 
of the channel in spite of this constant struggle 
necessitates the raising of the banks, and thus 
you glide along on water that is higher than the 
land about. 

"Do these banks ever break?" 

"Yes, sometimes." 

"What happens to the people?" 

"They are usually prepared for such an emer- People 
gency and make good their escape. Otherwise p r epj^ ed 
they are drowned." 

"And yet people do sleep in this country?" 
said Diderot. 

Just within the "Hook" the custom officials 
come on board and go through the pleasant farce 
of examining your baggage, which has been placed 
on deck. The inspection is soon over, and the 






li-k 



alkmaar: main thoroughfare. 



cabalistic marks on each parcel is your formal 
welcome to Holland. 

Newspapers are brought on, and you recall how 
more than a week has passed since you saw a daily. 
For once you do not want the morning paper, for 
it is "all Dutch to you." 

The banks slope gradually, and are protected 
at the very edge by willow w r attles. In front of 
these, in the water, grows a narrow belt of luxur- 
iant rushes. As the following wave of a steamer 
sweeps the shore, these rushes bend before it and 
make a solid thatch over which the wave rolls 
without abrasion, and as it passes they resume 
their upright position ready for the next attack. 




PH VINAGE (ANA I. 



Busy This comes soon, for this busy thoroughfare is 

water-ways a }j ve ^vvith passenger-boats, tugs, square-rigged 
vessels, canal boats, and all manner of craft. 

One is struck by the number and variety of 
the boats one meets — apparently floating houses, 
for the women are on board, together with the 
dogs and the children. 

Women, or boys, beginning with a basket, or 
with two baskets and a neck yoke, to dis- 
tribute vegetables or fish in the villages, 
economize until they are able to own 
a dog and cart, or a boat, and con- 
sider themselves well-to-do for 
this life. A family rich enough 
to possess a boat sufficiently 
roomy for their joint exist- 
ence, and that of a few 
tons of cargo, follow the 
business of freighting 
wherever change of 
season calls for change 
of route, but always 
continue "at home" in 
their migratory habita- 
tion. 

W h e n tied u p a t 
some wharf, acquaint- 
ances are formed and 
visits made which are 
returned sometimes in 
a distant city when the 
owners' boats may 
again be bumping 
against one another. 




TOWN li ILL. 



28 



The nautical expert will smile at the flat-bot- Dutch 
tomed boats which look as though a hatful of oats 
wind would endanger their safety, and so broad 
as to warrant the belief that they would not 
answer the helm. But they are strong and steady 
and can be sailed to a compass-point. A Dutch 
bargee is never idle as long as there is anything 
left to polish. The vessels are clean and shiny, 
the people clean and neat, the women wear the 
whitest of caps over their silver ornaments; there 
are pots of flowers, and even miniature gardens, 
in the tiny windows and on the decks, and there 
is a charming air of comfort and independent con- 
tentment about the vessel. 

As we sail along, we see on the banks, threading River 
in and out, the ever-moving kaleidoscope of form scener y 
and color. Resting in clumps of trees are the 
villas of the wealthy Rotterdamers, each with 
its name painted on gable or over the gateway. 

Every now and then, in the distance, the sail 
of a ship glides by, and, being in a canal invisible 
from that distance, it seems to be skimming over 
the grass of the meadows, appearing and disap- 
pearing behind the trees. 

"Every inch of the " well-larded earth" is under 
the most loving and elaborate cultivation. Small 
wonder that the farm houses look pictures of home 
contentment; that the porches and arbors are 
overrun with vine and flowers; that the great 
brass door knockers and the gilded weather-cocks 
fill the sunshine with tinges of glinting gold. 

But here we are at Delftshaven, the port from 
which the Plymouth pilgrims set sail, and now 



vou must take 1 
/ i 

pilot you in 



out 



guide-book 




scheveningen: dutch boats. 
29 





HOLLAND-AMERICA LINE TWIN-SCREW STEAMER ENTERING THE MA AS. 



HOW TO REACH THE ART-CENTERS 
OF HOLLAND. 



THE most direct and most convenient route 
from New York to Holland is via the Holland- 
America Line. The steamers of this line 
leave every Wednesday from their docks, foot of 
Fifth Street, Hoboken, N. J., and touching at 
Boulogne-sur-Mer for the landing of passengers to 
France and England, proceed direct to Rotterdam 
where passengers will arrive from ten to twelve 
hours later. 

The present fleet for the regular mail and pas- 
senger service between New York and Rotterdam 
consists of the following new twin-screw steamers : 

NOORDAM, 
RYNDAM, 

POTSDAM, 

STATENDAM, 

ROTTERDAM. 
These twin-screw steamers are of enormous ton- 
nage ; they are all provided with bilge keels and 
arc luxuriously appointed ; they afford all possible 
comfort for passengers, and embody in their i 
struction the latest improvements which tend to 
make a sea voyage a pleasure trip. 



30 



Illustrated hand-book and all other information 
about passage is promptly forwarded upon applica- 
tion to the general passenger offices of the Holland- 
America Line : 

New York City, 

39 Broadway, 

Chicago, 111., 

69 Dearborn Street, 

Boston, Mass., 

115 State St., cor Broad St., 

St. Louis, Mo., 

cor. Locust and 9th Streets, 

San Francisco, Cal., 

30 Montgomery Street, 

Minneapolis, Minn., 

121 South Third Street, 

New Orleans, La., 

219 St. Charles Street, 

Toronto, Canada, 

40 Toronto Street, 

Montreal, Canada, 

178 St. James Street, 
or to local agents. 




HOLLAND-AMERICA LINE TWIN SCREW STEAMER ARRIVING AT 
NEW YORK. 



31 




LBJ, 



LB J' .'05 



